Foodies goodies

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Perfect housewife day

I just love this Beyonce's retro videoclip:

One of the Polish 1950s handbooks for women said (I quote just more or less what I remembered): "When your husband comes home from work, you should look relaxed and happy. Don't look exhausted or irritated. Put a lipstick on your lips, brush your hair and welcome your husband with a smile, happy to serve him a meal in your perfectly clean kitchen".

Yeah

Betty Draper in her kitchen before daring to rebel

The Perfect Housewife ACEO Collage
by dadadreams

from bluntcard.com

Mr and Mrs Miller

Fifty years after her death Marilyn is still a favourite topic of biographists and album publishers. You can always find a wide range of books devoted to her and her glamorous and at the same time tragic life in shops. There's also a recent film about her episode in England during the making of The Prince and the Showgirl. Marilyn was a star, a sex icon, a great comedy actress, a lonely and unhappy woman who died in unexplained circumstanes. She was also probably addicted to medicines and drank definitely too much alcohol. But she was also the wife of Arthur Miller. Or rather Arthur Miller was the husband of Marilyn Monroe.

I was intrigued, how was it possible that an intellectualist and a famous playwright married a film star like Marilyn? And how was it possible that gorgeous Marilyn, the film and sex icon married a man like Miller? Neither handsome nor particularly attractive wrinkled intellectualist, 11 years older, with a wife and two children. She could have all the men in the world. How could it happen that they were married?

I looked for the answer in Christa Maerker's book Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, published in Poland by Wydawnictwo literackie publishing house. I don't find the book particularly good as I am sceptic of the new trend in biographic literature with authors tending to present their interpretations of facts and judging the protagonists. Still, thanks to the book I discovered many interesting facts.

Arthur Miller was Marylin's third husband. After her teenage marriage with James Dougherty and a tumultuous one with a baseball player Joe DiMaggio, and million romances on the way, Marilyn started the romance with Arthur. They met years before and since their first meeting Marilyn was writing letters to Arthur, perceiving him as a father she never had. She explained him that she needed a man to admire. At that time he advised her to admire Abraham Lincoln and Marilyn put the president's photo in frames.

Arthur was unhappy in his marriage, Marilyn felt insecure and needed a man she could trust. She was attracted by his intellectual charm and loved his glasses. He left his wife and two children, she converted to Judaism for him. They got married in 1956.

But they quickly realised that neither Marilyn was a perfect woman partner with her insecurity, addictions, hysterical moods and constant dissatisfaction with herself, nor Arthur was a perfect supportive husband, as he was absorbed by his playwright carrer. They simply didn't understand each other. However, they spent together over four years. This must have been a great love. There is no other explanation for the fact that two such different people decided to live together. They left multiple pictures showing this happy, caring love. 

Lynn Barber's Education

In the 70s she was famous for being a sex expert and publishing a revolutionary book How to Improve Your Man in Bed? Then she was nicknamed Demon Barber because of her interviews, direct and merciless for the interviewee. She worked in such newspapers as Penthouse, Sunday Times, the Observer and received a couple of journalism awards.

But she is probably, at least recently, most famous for her teenage affair with a stranger, much older than her, who turned out to be a cheater and freud. This episode from her youth was filmed by Lone Scherfig in the movie An Education starring Carrey Mullig as the main protagonist.

Don't they look alike?

The movie's screenplay was based on her Memoir An Education, published 2009. But the story of the romance (and engagement!) with Simon (in the movie he is called David, which Barber disapproved as David was the name of her beloved husband) is described in only one chapter of the book. Believe me, the rest is equally interesting. Barber writes about her promiscous Oxford time, her contribution to the sexual revolution and her amazing journalist career. Her style of writing is extremely brilliant and extremely honest, which I really appreciated. Barber's autoirony is hillarious and her sincerity is impressive. But the most moving is the last chapter - the tough story about losing the love of her life, her husband David who suffered from cancer. 

                                                         Lynn Barber, I do admire you.

Shrimp

A 60s icon, the first top model in history and one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century. British model and actress Jean Shrimpton. This symbol of the Swinging London era, the mini-skirt era (mind her long, slim legs) became a world known model, whose pretty face with big blue eyes was on the covers of top fashion magazines.

BBC is making a film about her romance with photographer David Bayley who made a model-star out of an unknown British girl. Although the trailer is not very promising, I would like to watch the film as a 60s setting fan. We'll Take Manhattan is coming soon.

Bonjour Tristesse

I watched her both in black and white and in technicolor in the film Bonjour Tristesse from 1958. Based on the novel by Francoise Sagan, it is set mostly in the French Rivera, where 17 year old Cecile spends holidays with her playboy father. Jean Seberg perfectly fits this role of a young, lively, careless girl, who is actually spoiled and extremely selfish, running in shorts and a blue shirt tied at the waist and stylish one-piece swimsuits, exposing her girly shapes.

I fell in love with her boyish haircut that suits her more than any other actress of that time. And that gorgeous dress in the black and white shots from Paris. Jean Seberg is my new discovery in the field of beauty icons.